A sense of direction. [UI Design]

Today, as my daughter watched her Your Baby Can Readvideo, I had ghosts of the 99% Invisible podcast dancing through my head. In a flash I realized that the time-line indicator on every video program or site moves from left to right. This is was someone’s conscious design choice. There was an option to move from right to left.

The Your Baby Can Read videos show words and then have an arrow underneath them that slide from left to right to train the babies to scan words that way. Again… left to right.

Once you think about it, the time-line indicator decision is obvious. We scan everything from left to right. It’s second-nature but it’s not natural, it’s something we learn before we even realize it.

My question: do time lines and play buttons in Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia go the other way?